SHORT+SWEET BRISBANE+GOLD COAST+SUNSHINE COAST

10 DAYS UNTIL DEADLINE!

Submissions for Actors, Directors and Independent Theatre Groups close on May 31st 2012

Got a 10 minute play? Sure you do!

Simon Denver adapted So, Where Is It? from the original one-act play, which he wrote for a festival in a matter of days after Sam Coward said one day over a few beers, “WHY NOT? WE’RE GOOD AT VIOLENCE.”

The 10 minute version only came about when I received a phone call during rehearsals for our gig at The Sydney Children’s Festival inviting us to submit something to Short + Sweet and Sam said, in the dressing room of the Seymour Centre, “WHY NOT? WE’RE GOOD AT VIOLENCE AND IT’S JUST 10 MINUTES.”

So, Where Is it? won Brett Klease Best Actor at last year’s Sunshine Coast Theatre Festival and the 10 minute version took out 1st place in the Gold Coast & Brisbane Short+Sweet competitions. It then went to Sydney (thanks to some of YOU! THANK YOU!), where it won third place.

With so many one-act play festivals happening across the Sunshine Coast, why not do the same? Or register your 10 minute play from the recent season in Buderim. IT’S JUST 10 MINUTES! YOU CAN DO IT!

You CAN do it. But do you need some help taking the red pen to your script? Register first! Just do it and then let us know! We can help edit and workshop your one-act play down to just 10 minutes or help you find a new script to work on.

Have you ever been involved in community theatre? We used to call it “amateur” theatre but that term has become more closely associated with poor quality performances and megalomania than with its original meaning, which is “to love” (from the Latin verb, amo). The term, “community theatre”, seems to have a friendlier tone to it. But that tone can be deceptive!

Simon Denver’s That Scottish Play features a talented and, one suspects, largely undiagnosed cast of Sunshine Coast actors sending up Sunshine Coast actors. It reveals the machinations of a community theatre group in the imagined Sunshine Coast town of Widgee. It could be Nambour. It could be anywhere. We recognise the characters and their quirks, we laugh out loud at their ridiculous antics and we loathe the egos that can’t help but surface under the little theatre’s spotlight. Names are named and every local theatre company is fair game! No one and nothing is safe from Denver’s pen!

That Scottish Play has been taken out of the vault and prepared for a strictly limited season at Lind Lane Theatre in just a few weeks. It’s like (Louis Nowra’s) Cosi on ice, though not the family-friendly Disney version you’re thinking of. More like the unfriendly, politically incorrect, if-only-there-were-ice-in-Africa, chaotic kind of Cosi on Ice. It’s an extremely talented ensemble – Denver says they are “from the deeper end of the talent pool” – and one of them, Sam Coward, who plays the guy who plays Macbeth, Nathan Gayelord, says, “I never read the script. It was a guideline.” This is typical from someone who has worked with Denver before. Many of the members of this extended company (let’s call it +SRT) have had that privilege and a few have not. Let’s hope they are brave enough to take up the mantle again because this cast is a joy to watch. They are each experienced enough and confident enough to just play. This play requires the notion of play to be unleashed – as Director, this is Denver’s specialty – and we can see that they’re having fun! It’s certainly the best parody we’ve seen and the local references are obvious enough to have audience members blushing in their seats, loving every minute of it!

The “problem” with such a localised and personalised parody is that those who are slightly outside of the teensy weensy world of local theatre don’t get it. This may need to be a consideration in future, in order to attract the desired ticket sales. I watched with interest on opening night, a party of elderly, typically Lind Lane Theatre patrons and they were in turns, bemused, horrified, terrified, nonplussed and not amused. I was in fact waiting for one of them to say at the end, “We are not amused.” Perhaps they thought they were coming to see Shakespeare’s Macbeth?!

Well, of course if you read the publicity or Google Mr Denver’s works, you’ll realise that this is not Macbeth but a basic tale of typical amateur over-the-top theatrics. The Lower Widgee Amateur Drama Group prepare to stage a production of Macbeth…with all the actual and boring Macbeth bits taken out of it! Early in the rehearsal process, the show becomes a musical (because what’s the biggest bums-on-seats show an amateur theatre company can pull off in a year? A musical!), allowing us to enjoy ridiculous musical theatre performances (think Forbidden Broadway) from the likes of Chris Surplice (who has come up from Sydney to play) and Sam Coward, who hasn’t been heard to sing, except in the car and in the theatre when bored or making a point as Director, since he played Javert in an impressive little production of Les Miserables in Mt Isa (not so impressive were the brows back then, mine, not Sam’s; his are fine. Thank goodness I’ve been threaded since then!).

Well-known, well-loved performers from right across the coast join these pillars of performance power and strength on stage. Joy Marshall as Penelope Ascot is a standout. She limps and she lisps and whenever The Trophy or The Awards are mentioned, she twitches. Hers is a hilarious performance and it is well balanced by Brett Klease’s, as the professional director, Simon, from Brisbane, who comes in on the wings of a successful grant application and won’t be directing anything much in the end (and won’t be allowed to leave)! Surplice, as Nigel Chandler, has a few nice little moments, particularly in the plotting, scheming scenes, when we get a glimpse at how far the bitchiness backstage can go. Howie Tampling gives us some good belly laughs, as the guy with Tourette’s and Errol Morrison is the perfect small country town mayor and the hapless husband of the overly-ambitious Penelope.

Individual characters are made very clear and some of the mimicry is too close to be believed. Yikes! But even the audience members who are at the brunt of the jokes appear pleased! Phew! MD Darren Heskes provides an amusing, well-synched underscore throughout, referencing all the major musicals. His work helps to move more swiftly some of the scenes that threaten to lag. This is exemplified in Nigel’s scheming scene, in which he plots with Penelope to kill the (university trained) “real” actors, underscored by a few bars from Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar. The actors could very easily have sung, “We need him crucified, it’s all you have to do…”

This production is a first for the Sunshine Coast. It parodies the best-known members of each theatre company in a ruthless and rather daring manner and yet leaves only a few offended (the collateral damage). It seems the writing is witty enough and the pace fast enough for this motley company to get away with all manner of sins! The combined talents on stage and off indicate that there is a distinct lack of entertainment like this – for actors and audience to get their teeth into – and the results indicate that there should be more of it. If Denver can pen a play like this in a couple of hours (and re-write it during rehearsals) and another, his latest, in less than an hour (So, Where Is It? was originally a one act play and was whittled down to just 10 minutes, winning the Gold Coast and Brisbane Short + Sweet Awards and taking out 3rd place in the national competition in Sydney this year), then he should be producing something new at least twice a year! There is talent to perform the work and audiences craving to see it. Let’s have more like this, please.

Last evening, Wednesday 3 May 2012, my partner and I with a couple of friends attended the production of “That Scottish Play”. Now we would like to take this opportunity in thanking every actor in this production plus all of the theatre crew for one of the most enjoyable theatre experiences of Lind Lane (although we also did enjoy the 3 Act plays performed last year by the theatre.)

We all found the play, or was it really a musical in disguise, we still aren’t too sure, totally entertaining and extremely funny and terribly well crafted and acted. Congratulations to all for a great night’s entertainment and may we expect more of the same in the future? we do hope so.

Simon Denver’s writings are truly of an international standard and he certainly knows just how to bring out the ‘best’ in his players.

We wish the cast and writer/director all the very best and again, thank you so much for such a most memorable evening of true comic theatre.

Influence opened in Noosa on Friday night. You’ve had 3 sold-out performances to start the season. How do you feel?

Very satisfied, especially considering where the show is at, where ticket sales are at and the level at which the public and critical responses have been. We’re in a good place!

Were there any obstacles or hiccups to overcome to get to this stage?

It’s been a relatively painless process. Illness at the eleventh hour made me a little nervous but generally speaking, with the level of competence in my cast and the level of wisdom in Williamson’s words, it all went pretty smoothly.

Opening Night highlights?

It was the first time in a long time that I’ve been able to sit in the bio box and see the audience’s immediate reactions and feel the buzz – it was electrifying and very satisfying.

So what’s your role during the run?

Because I’m a control freak and because, for the technical accuracy of this show, a degree of intimacy with the script was required, I decided I wanted to manually operate the lights for Influence.

When did you stop giving notes?

Today. Today the show reached a level that I felt couldn’t be enhanced or improved upon. This is not to say that I won’t be giving any further notes during the run, this just means I’m giving no more notes, at this stage, until further notice.

What’s your favourite thing about this show?

I would have to say that’s it’s probably that the end result is so close to the vision I had from the outset. This production has stayed true to the original picture and it’s exciting to see that a) we’ve been able to do that and b) other people like it too.

Is there anything you would have done differently?

I would have put somebody else in the box early enough to learn the cues.

I really think the time invested in character early on is shining through now. We used the time we had very well. The performances are genuine.

I’ve felt very confident, almost relaxed, which is really rare. Usually tech week is all horror but it was seamless. It’s been a relatively easy ride. I feel like I just had to sell the vision and then discuss characters with the cast, design…in fact, the biggest part of my job was at the front end.

The playwright, David Williamson, is attending on the final night, a special gala evening to celebrate his 40 years’ involvement at Noosa Arts Theatre on April 30th. How do you feel about him seeing the show?

I’m very excited about that actually, because from our first discussions with him, he was intrigued as to how we were going to do this. Even Michael Futcher acknowledged that he’s not heard of anyone trying to do a Williamson in this way. I’m interested to get David’s reaction and I hope we can do his 40 Year Celebration justice. I’m quietly confident that we will. The way in which we are staging Influence is truly honouring the text and trusting that Australia’s greatest playwright is acknowledged as such for a reason. I don’t have to hide anything or do anything with smoke and mirrors because it’s enough on its own. And while I’m arrogant, I’m not arrogant enough to think there’s anything I can do with it that will improve on what’s already there. So with a text and a cast of this caliber how could I go wrong?

What’s next for you?

Hmmm. It’s a mystery.

David Williamson’s Influence continues at Noosa Arts Theatre until April 30th. To enquire about any remaining tickets, please call the box office (07) 5449 9343

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.